Playing With Fire
by EASPOA
Summary: In which Riku goes crazy, Axel gets kidnapped, everyone gets lost in the Underworld, Xemnas plots, Cloud crossdresses, our heroes get eaten by a whale, and the world needs saving. Again. Post KH2.
1. Burning Down Destiny Islands

Title: Playing With Fire  
Summary: It was an ordinary day until Riku decided to burn the island down. Apparently the paopu fruit offended him. Post-KH2.  
Final Disclaimer: KH is not ours, and you should be damn grateful for that.  
A.N: This fic is rather made of crack. (A lot of crack…)  
In the hands of different people, it probably would have been serious. With us, though…yeah. Crack.  
A working knowledge of FFVII is highly recommended for this fic. We've been pulling from several FFs, ranging from VI to X-2, but VII is the most significant. It's possibly understandable without, but yeah…Maybe not.  
I'm sure there's more we could say (would you want to hear it?), but right now, we're waiting to get the 7th Harry Potter book. I've (read PM) obviously got better things to do than try to explain this fic (which really can't be done…without bursting something important), so just read forth and don't blame us for lost brain cells.

* * *

There was a certain smell that accompanied roasted paopu. Which was why most islanders knew that paopu is best eaten raw. Even though it was slightly bitter raw, almost everyone preferred that over the smell of raw eggs and sour lemons mixed with vinegar that permeated the air once paopu hit fire.

So, naturally, Destiny Island stank when all the paopu trees were set on fire.

And in the center of this, looking slightly maniacal from the fire reflecting in his eyes, was a familiar figure who was laughing maniacally. Donald had always known there was something off about that Riku boy, but this was taking insanity to a whole new level as he and Goofy stared the teen stab viciously at the remaining fruit, causing them to explode and splatter Riku with their innards.

The two off-world travelers stared at the crazy boy in morbid fascination while Riku continued onto the small village beside the beach. But once Riku started burning down the seaside shack, Goofy asked Donald hesitantly, "Uh... Shouldn't we stop him??"

As obvious as the answer was to that question, Donald found himself unable to answer. This was possibly due to shock, but most likely due to a burning piece of wood crashing down on his head. So, instead of saving the innocent islanders, Goofy spent his valuable rescue time nursing a large lump on Donald's head. But as soon as he moved away from the unconscious duck and towards a screaming girl, Sora and Kairi came running onto the scene.

Keyblades raised, it seemed like the two would be unstoppable in protecting the defenseless villagers, but before Goofy could even make his presence known to either of them, a silver blur ran by him and jumped Sora. Next thing anyone knew, Riku was nuzzling Sora with a psychotic grin, while the brunet looked ready to faint due to a combination of oxygen deprivation and the excessive amount of blood running up into his face.

Donald chose that moment to wake up. In his grogginess and upon seeing one of his best friends in what seems to be the death grip of a once sane, now crazy boy, the slightly coherent duck charged at said crazy boy when Sora squeaked, "Can't breathe."

Still, it seemed to be a bit of an overreaction when Donald tried to set Riku on fire. Unfortunately the spell missed and hit Sora instead, who managed to shriek despite the continuing issue of oxygen deprivation.

Riku, seeing that his squeeze toy was becoming charred, promptly stuffed squeeze toy, aka Sora, into a large burlap rucksack and tied off the ends, leaving Sora's spiky head and slightly blue face above the closing.

This however, did nothing for the fact that his hair was still on fire. Out of reflex, Kairi immediately reached over to try and put out the fire, but her attempts were cut off when Riku let out a scream of bloody murder and attacked her.

Kairi probably would have gawked when Riku shrieked, "No touchy! Mine! Mine! Mine!!!" at her, but she was too busy dodging a deadly keyblade aimed for her neck. After a close call involving Riku slicing off a good inch of the hair above her right shoulder, Kairi panted as she crouched on the beach, taking a quick breather as Goofy distracted Riku by flinging his shield at Riku's head.

"Riku, you idiot! Stop this!" Kairi cried. And in an attempt to try and get through to him, she lobbed a small pebble at Riku.

Too bad he caught it. And sent it flying back in her direction.

And beamed her right on the forehead

The pebble probably did more damage to her sanity than it actually caused any pain, so it was hard to tell why she fell back down. Whatever the reason for it, the lapse gave Riku the edge he needed. Kicking Donald out of the way, Riku stood over Kairi in order to deliver that final blow when he was suddenly sent toppling.

As it turned out, Riku—in his hysteria—had not bothered to tie off the rucksack ropes too tightly, making it relatively easy for Sora to wiggle out and keep Riku from killing their friend. There was still the matter of his head being on fire, but this was taken care of as the two fell, Riku somehow managing to land on top of Sora as he landed in the mud, which while making him rather icky looking did have the benefit of finally putting the fire in his hair out.

Regardless, to everyone's amazement, his hair was still perfectly fine.

Sora, despite all his childhood romps, had grown out of novelty of playing in the mud and decided that being coated in the slimy mess was not pleasant. But, before he had a chance to do more than grimace and wipe the mud off his face, Riku came charging at him, crying, "How could you!"

Relying on reflexes, Sora rolled out of the way (into the mud) and asked, "How could I what?"

Each word accented by a swing of his blade, Riku responded, "How could you choose that whore over me!?"

"But... but Kairi's our friend!" he said in a very manly squeak as he nearly missed getting his throat taken out.

"Our friend? Would a friend steal the one person I love? Would a friend betray me like that? Would a friend give another friend's friend a paopu fruit despite knowing how much that friend's friend mattered to the friend?! Would she?!" Riku shrieked (1).

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Sora wailed, but Riku would have none of that. Instead, his ignorance seemed to make the other teen even more angry, causing his attacks to become increasingly frenzied and dangerous.

Fighting a jealous, raving, and well..._insane_ Riku was just plain hard when you were trying not to hurt him and talk sense into him at the same time. But Sora tried anyways. It was just too bad that he wasn't very good at multitasking. And even with Donald and Goofy helping, Riku couldn't be convinced to stop his crazed attacks.

"Mommy," Sora whimpered as Riku, after giving him a nice, vicious stab in the left thigh which effectively prevented him from moving anywhere, came barreling down with what looked to be the finishing blow.

Luckily for Sora, a spear came flying down from the skies into Riku's path.

"Wow, you turning blind or something? You missed him by a mile!" Yuffie yelled at the pilot, who glared at her. From behind them, Sora could just see Leon (who looked like he had a terrible headache), Cloud (who looked bored), Aerith (who smiled and waved), and Tifa (who looked slightly worried about the insanity surrounding her. Either that or the smell of rotting paopu fruit was making her grimace) standing there with varying degrees of disbelief on their faces.

"I was trying to miss so shut your damn mouth!" Cid snapped back.

"Why the hell are you trying to miss, Cid? You should have skewered him!"

"What the hell is wrong with you? How about I fucking skewer you?!" Cid growled, looking quite ready to carry out that particular threat.

"Ha, as if you could! Because it seems like you've forgotten that your spear is over there, where crazy boy is... oh my god, what is he doing?"

"Hey! Stop chewing on that!"

"Bad doggy! Bad rabid...foaming at mouth...doggy??"

Really, Yuffie just didn't know how to lecture and scold properly.

"Uh...Riku? Are you trying to say something about you're sexuality?" Tifa asked, trying her hardest to keep her tone of voice supportive. But it was hard when the whole island surrounding you was burning down. And the boy in question was really frothing at the mouth.

"No, of course not!" Kairi screamed angrily, having woken up from the pebble-meets-face incident. "I think him trying to skewer me with his keyblade for trying to flirt with his boyfriend is making a statement about him being gay!"

"Riku's gay?! Who's he dating?"

Sora stared blankly at Kairi who was giving him a death glare in return.

"I don't think that is the point, Sora," Aerith said kindly as she cast a quick healing spell on him. The effects were immediate; the wound closed up and Sora shrieked from the pain of flesh melding itself back together without warning.

"Um, guys? You do realize that he's still—oh shit," was Cloud's oh so eloquent observation as Riku suddenly realized that chewing on metal was much less satisfying than chewing on something more fleshy. This led him to stop what he was doing in favor of launching himself at Sora once again, who while healed was still on his knees due to the power of Kairi's awesome glare o' doom.

Luckily, Squall-Don't-Call-Me-That-It's-Leon-Damnit-Why-The-Hell-Can't-You-Remember-Yuffie-I'm-Talking-To-You was a little quicker to react, quickly swinging his gunblade out so that Riku's head slammed into the flat of the blade with a loud smack, sending him flying ten feet away. But what would have laid anyone else out just caused Riku to shake his head looking slightly dazed, making Leon step back with a slight frown on his face.

Riku, not very happy with Leon interfering with his "Chase down Sora and make him _mine_!" game, turned to face the interloper and leapt at Leon with his keyblade leading the way.

Leon simply side stepped Riku and left him to go flying at Cloud, who blocked the Keyblade with his giant sword.

"Wow. Thanks, Leon," Cloud grumbled.

"Squall says you're welcome!" Yuffie replied cheerfully. "Cloud, do you mind if I hit you? Just in case I miss, you know. Not that I would miss, of course, seeing how I'm the great ninja Yuffie! But you never know and I want to make sure and you do seem like you need some help but if I hit you then you're going to be mad at me and-"

"Yuffie, will you shut up?!" Cloud snapped, swinging his totally-not-compensating-for-something sword and blocking another of Riku's attempts to take his head off. "You're distracting me!"

"Geez, _sorry_? That's the last time I try to help you! Next time some crazy guy comes for you and you need my help, I'm just going to say, 'But Cloud! You didn't need my help last time! And I was totally going to help you, but then-"

"Yuffie!"

"Stop distracting the man and try and get the damn bugger!" Cid snarled at the hyperactive ninja as he charged by, spear—slightly soggy from Riku's drool—in hand.

Riku, the nimble little bastard, seemed to be taunting his opponents, because no matter who swung at him or how many people attacked him, he just dodged or flipped out of the way. However, once Tifa and Sora joined the fight, Riku noticed that he was fighting one too many people and became quite upset.

Large patches of darkness began to appear on the ground and everyone scrambled to get out of the way of the large spikes that appeared in the darkness. Cloud, however, was not one of the lucky ones, since Yuffie left him to fend for himself after she used him as a stepping stone.

"Cloud!" As soon as she noticed what was happening, Tifa tried to make her way to the unfortunate blond. However, her efforts were rewarded when Cloud suddenly slashed at her. She pulled back in time to keep from losing an arm, but not quickly enough as he scored a long gash down her arm.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Cid demanded, but it turned out that catching Cloud's attention was not really high on anyone's list of things to do. Nor was ignoring Riku, as the teen used the distraction to his advantage to grab Kairi and pin her down, his keyblade's edge just touching her neck.

"Kairi!" Sora cried out in panic, ramming Riku from the side and knocking him a few feet away from Kairi. While Riku was shaking his head, dazed from the sudden blow, Sora helped Kairi to her feet and led her over to Donald and Goofy.

"Watch out for her would ya guys?"

Sora waited for Donald and Goofy to give an affirmative before launching over to help Leon and Yuffie fight off Cloud. Unfortunately, he was intercepted by an enraged Riku, and Sora tried to multitask again.

"Riku! Stop this!" Sora yelled as he blocked an overhead swing. "I'm sorry I didn't know you were gay, but I'm sure we can work something out! You'll always be my best friend!"

For some reason, these words seemed to make Riku only angrier.

"I think he wants to be more than best friends, Sora!" Yuffie offered helpfully as she ducked Cloud's blade. "Hey, watch what you're doing; you could have taken my head off!"

"I think that's the point, Yuffie," Tifa replied carefully, joining Sora to help him fight off Riku.

"Best friends with benefits?"

"What kind of benefits?" Sora replied cluelessly, still trying to do multiple things at once and suffering for it as Riku's blade nipped him in the side.

"Don't tell me you never got the talk! Goofy, Donald, what on earth did you guys talk about during all those trips on the Gummi ship?!"

"We played uno!"

"Oh brother," Yuffie groaned, slapping her forehead and jumping over the Buster Sword at the same time. "Leon! Since Donald and Goofy won't do it, why don't you give Sora the talk!"

"Yuffie," Leon growled, "Now is not the time!"

"But Leon!" Yuffie protested, "If not now, when? Sora's already being propositioned! He needs to know!"

"Maybe," Leon said scathingly, "A time when our comrades are NOT TRYING TO KILL US!"

"Oh. Yeah. Well okay then!"

Even though Leon and Yuffie had been parrying Cloud's swings during their whole exchange, Cloud did not seem pleased that they were not focusing fully on him.

He expressed this anger as a familiar black wing ripped through his clothing.

"Oh shit."

That was about as much Cid could come out with as at the same exact moment, Riku also got serious. Whatever skills the two had demonstrated prior seemed like child's play as both began to attack viciously, abruptly putting the small group on the defensive and hemming them in from both sides. It might have been different if they could have also attacked with full force, but something about killing comrades and friends seemed to not sit well with the group, making their attacks more conservative than normal. Their two attackers had no similar qualms, putting them all in what was a very bad situation.

That is, until the cavalry came.

It was quite literally a cavalry, what with the cowboy hat and propensity for cowhide. The only thing missing was a pair of spurs, but that lapse could be forgiven as a loud shot rang through the setting even above the crackle of fire and falling buildings.

Yuffie turned to Leon with a puzzled look on her face and asked, "I thought you didn't use the gun part of your gunblade anymore?"

"I don't," Leon answered monotonously while placing a hand on Yuffie's head and spinning her 180 degrees so that she could gawk at the newcomer like everyone else was doing already.

"Hi. You looked like you could use some help." The figure standing on top the right wing of Cid's new ship tipped his cowboy hat back to reveal his face and grinned at the group below him.

"Name's Irvine Kinneas. Hail from Cactuar Island..." Irvine's introduction was cut short by a loud screech.

"Get your dirty feet off my baby!!!" Cid screamed in outrage.

"I knew there was something wrong with you!"

"Now is not the goddamn time, Yuffie," Cid snarled, turning to point an accusing finger at the newcomer. "Who the fuck are you and what the hell do you want?!"

"Well, that was what I was trying to say before you so rudely interrupted—whoa!" Irvine barely dodged the Buster Sword. "What's wrong with him?"

"The hell if we know," Yuffie replied. "But I bet it has something to do with the angsty past. He's very angsty. Always angsting. You should hear him angst! He can angst like nobody else! Angst, angst, angst. It's all he does! Even when there's nothing wrong he'll angst because he has nothing to angst about, and-"

Leon cut off Yuffie's ramble with a hand over her mouth, "I don't know who you are, but you might want to watch out."

"Watch out?"

Riku appeared behind Irvine and took a swipe at Irvine's head, only to catch the cowboy hat as Irvine jerked forwards.

"Woah!" Irvine tumbled off Cid's ship and onto the beach, followed closely (and much more gracefully) by Riku and Cloud, who seemed intent on drawing blood from this newcomer.

Taking Irvine's fall as a cue, the rest of the slackers, aka everyone else, charged towards fight, weapons drawn.

From behind them, Aerith quickly cast a sleep spell at Cloud. However, although she had cast the magic perfectly, the spell bounced off and hit Leon instead, causing the brunet to abruptly fall over. This had the chain effect of tripping Yuffie, who in turn tripped Cid, whose cursing caught the attention of Irvine and distracted him long enough for Cloud to practically vault over all of them of them and towards Aerith.

"Look out!" Tifa yelled, which was really quite unnecessary but the sentiment was appreciated. Aerith quickly jumped back to avoid Cloud's attack, trying to get far enough away so she could try to cast another spell. Cloud was too fast for that though, keeping close and forcing her to keep moving if she wanted to keep possession of all working limbs and breathing capabilities.

In an attempt to save one of her very good friends and knock some sense into Cloud, literally, Tifa leapt at Cloud and gave him a solid roundhouse kick to his side. However, even though she was sure she connected, since she felt some ribs give, Tifa was thrown a few feet back having met face first with the hilt of Cloud's sword. After rolling a few times in the sand, Tifa recovered on her knees and swiped a hand across her lips, wiping away the blood from a split lip.

"You...you hit me!" Her eyes began to well with tears. "How could you Cloud?!"

"I don't think all the lights are on upstairs Tifa, if you know what I mean," Cid said while handing her a potion before charging over to Cloud, who decided to resume attacking Aerith.

"But what about friendship and camaraderie?"

"Keep that up and you're going to sound like Yuffie."

"Hey!" Yuffie shrieked from where she was trying to pull Leon's sleeping form up. "I heard that!"

"You can hear that but you can't hear me yelling at you to shut the fuck up?!"

"Gawd Squall you're so freaking fat! And old man, maybe you should be helping Aerith instead of getting on my case about some minor detail!"

"Minor detail? Minor detail? That's the problem with you damn brats, you never fucking listen! Always jabbering on as if you know everything, when what you really need is a good smack on the face to knock some goddamn sense into you!" Cid snarled, demonstrating this point very nicely by using his spear (the blunt end, thankfully) almost as a baseball bat with Cloud's head as the ball. This move was met by simultaneous shrieks from all females present, which woke Leon up (and made his headache worse) just in time to watch Cloud fall.

"Snk...wha? Oh good job Cid," Leon mumbled, still slightly affected by the sleep spell. "Gerrof me Yuffie," he growled, pulling his arm out from her grip.

"What! Such ungratefulness!! See if I ever help you again!"

"Yuffie! Watch out!" Aerith cried, pointing at some unseen foe behind Yuffie's head.

"Huh?"

At the sound of a crash, Yuffie turn to see Leon's gunblade had intercepted Riku's sword inches away from her head. Screeching at thought of being nearly decapitated, Yuffie crab-walked away from the fight that erupted between Leon and Riku.

In the distance, Yuffie saw the new guy level his rifle with his eyesight and saw him target Riku. And Leon, who was in the way.

But instead of warning her partner, she just curled up into a fetal position and waited for the gun shot.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Before anyone could blink, Sora had barreled into the new guy and started throttling him mightily. "Don't shoot him! He's our friend!"

"Doesn't... ouch! Seem like it... hey, stop it! From my point of... damnit, ow! View!" Irvine growled. "He's trying to kill you!"

"He's just misunderstood! I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this!" Sora wailed, even as Irvine shoved him out of the way of Riku's keyblade, intercepting it instead with his gun (wincing slightly at the damage that was sure to cause).

"He's sexually frustrated!" Kairi added.

"So that makes it okay for him to burn down your home and try to kill you?" Irvine demanded through gritted teeth, totally not bitter about the fact that Riku—who was completely oblivious to the fact that his friends were defending his insanity—was still trying to kill him.

"Everyone has their bad days," Tifa said from the sidelines as she and Aerith pulled Cloud toward the ship, wincing slightly every time his head bumped painfully against the ground.

"Look cutie, I'm sure your friend was good at some point, maybe at birth, but he's obviously not all ther...woah," Irvine was cut off as he had to dive to the side to avoid having his brain split in half by Riku's keyblade.

"Cutie?" Sora asked curiously, "Who's the cutie?"

Irvine rolled his eyes as he tried to get far enough away from the insane boy to get in a clear shot. "You, sweetie."

"Me?!" Sora wasn't sure if his squeak was out of embarrassment, or because Riku's blade got really close to his ear on that last swing at Irvine.

"Sora's mine! His cuteness can only be adored by me! No one else can appreciate Sora's cuteness except for me! Me! Me! Me!" Riku did not seem to like competition, even though he had nearly disfigured said cutie.

"Too bad crazy boy," Irvine replied, frowning when his last shot missed Riku by a mile. "I really like his ass." To drive his point home, Irvine reached over and groped Sora.

At this, Kairi shrieked and chucked her keyblade at him, hitting Irvine in the shoulder and causing him to fall. Whether or not this was her intention it was hard to say, but this caused Riku to miss cutting Irvine across the chest as the man fell to his knees. Having failed to let go of Sora's lovely ass, he took Sora with him, resulting in a rather messy and awkward heap that would drive any yaoi fangirl enthusiast crazy with sheer delight.

It also made them sitting ducks for Riku, who seemed to interpret the situation in the wrong way and was again frothing at the mouth. "You betrayed me!" he shrieked. "You betrayed me for this wannabe cowboy!"

"Now wait just a second," Irvine protested, but his words were drowned out as Riku continued to shriek.

"I lay my heart out for you and you cheat on me right in front of my eyes! How could you! How could you do this to me?!"

"Riku!"

Riku didn't look like he was in the mood to listen to any explanations, but it didn't really matter as Leon slammed into his back, knocking him down. Gunblade held ready, he turned to the two with a frown on his face, "If you two are done with your... activities, get to the gummi ship. This place isn't going to last much longer, and at this rate there isn't any way we can win this in time."

"But we can't just leave Riku behind!"

"Actually, we can," Irvine corrected, picking himself up and grabbing Sora by the wrist. "We're listening to Scarface and getting the hell out of here."

"That's Leon!"

Seeing as to how Aerith and Tifa had made little progress with dragging Cloud onto the ship, Yuffie rushed over and grabbed him by the arms. "Let's go girls! This lump of man needs to be on that ship pronto! Move! Move! Move!" Yuffie craned her head over her shoulder and yelled at Donald and Goofy, "Hey, you heard the boss man! Let's go!"

"What about our ship!?" Donald squawked back.

"You left it in orbit right?" Cid said, scooping up Kairi and throwing her over his shoulders. "We'll get it on the way up!"

"How do you plan on doing that?" Goofy asked.

"Questions later! Move now!"

And so they ran. Or in Kairi's case, let the others do the running for her.

"Kairi!"

Looking up at the sound of her name, Kairi saw Tidus, Selphie and Wakka running up to the beach.

"Hey guys!"

"What's going on? The whole island is burning!"

"Really? Because we didn't fucking notice already!" Cid yelled. "Who the hell are those brats?!"

"They're our friends! Please, you have to take them with us!" Kairi screamed.

"Gah! Don't scream into my ear like that!" Cid replied. "Tell them to hurry their asses up if they think they're coming with us!"

Luckily the three were already quite close to the ship, reaching it just as the combined efforts of Yuffie, Aerith, and Tifa managed to get Cloud's useless weight into the ship. Seeing that everyone was safely aboard, Leon let fly a quick firaga spell, which exploded in Riku's face but seemed to accomplish nothing except for throwing the teen back long enough that he too could reach the gummi ship. As soon as he was inside, he slammed his hand into the control panel to close the door, and was admittedly satisfied to hear the loud smack of someone running face first into a recently closed metal door.

"Yuffie! Get out of the fucking pilot's seat! No you can't drive!"

"Cid, get us out of here!" Leon yelled up to the cabin as he made sure the door wouldn't fall in from the pounding coming from the other side.

"I would if Yuffie would get out of the fucking way!" was the heated reply, followed by an "Ow!" and thud.

As he felt the plane rise, Leon rolled his eyes before surveying the stragglers left in the back.

One unconscious blond. Check.

Female fretting friend of said blond. Check.

One keyblade master, moping in the corner. "Riku...Did you want to play uno with us too?" Check.

One stowaway. Che... Did he just wink at me?

One Princess of Heart, one duck, one dog, and three bums. Check, check, check.

One pink monstros... not check.

"Cid! Did we leave Aerith behind!?"

"What?" Sora gasped, "We left another friend behind!? NO!!!"

"I'm up here Leon! Holding Yuffie away from the controls."

Leon returned to his mental check list.

One pink monstrosity, bow included. Check.

Oh yes, he thought to himself as the ship started to lift off, causing the pounding from outside to cease. Life was good. Well, as long as you ignored the unconscious guy, the hyperactive-sex-drive stowaway guy, the emo guy, and the growing argument at the pilot's seat that was quite possibly going to cause the ship to spontaneously combust from internal pressure. Not to mention the fact that the island behind them was in a state of ruin, the trees still ablaze and the buildings falling, their residents probably trapped inside and now condemned to horrible deaths. And the problem that they now had no idea what to do, where to go, and even what was going on.

Still, other than that, life was good.

"Our ship!" Donald screamed from beside him. "What about our gummi ship?!"

"We're leaving it!"

"You said we could get it from-"

"I fucking lied!"

"Why you-!"

"Leon, where are you going?" Tifa asked from where she was fretting, frowning as Leon suddenly started walking purposefully for the storage room.

"... I'm going to go fling myself off this ship."

Notes:  
(1) Wish we knew what Riku was talking about, too.

End Notes: This fic will be updated when we feel like it. Which will be sooner than you want us to, and later than we should.


	2. Crash Landing

Title: Playing with Fire  
PM Notes: So another update, which according to PAS is really short ('cause she usually only updates once a blue moon). Then again, I'm not one to talk because I have about six KH fics sitting in my computer, none of which are having much progress done.  
Anywho. This is chapter 2. Which is fairly obvious, I hope. Otherwise, not much to say.

_Chapter 2_

Leon never thought he could have an eye twitch this bad. Or a headache.

Or a pain in the neck as bad as one Irvine Kinneas.

The constant flirting and groping of one leather covered sharp shooter coupled with the stress of trying to cheer up one depressed keyblade master was grating on his nerves.

Especially the cheering up part.

Leon was _not cheery._

Now Yuffie. Yuffie was quite cheery, and her cheeriness was also starting to seriously grate on Leon's nerves. It was reaching the point where he wanted nothing more than to fling her off the ship, but then he would not only have to deal with a depressed keyblade master but he would also have to deal with Tifa and Aerith screaming their heads off at him. And he knew for a fact that would make his headache, eye twitch, and pain in the neck even worse because he could just see Irvine trying to 'comfort' the two mother hens.

Basically, it just wasn't a good idea to throw Yuffie off the ship. Which meant that sooner or later, he was going to have to stop Cid from doing exactly that, as he could see the pilot was starting to turn red with rage.

"Yuffie, if you don't get your ass out of that seat, I'm going to-"

"You're going to what, old man? Yeah? Yeah?! I'm _waiting_!"

"Why you little brat!"

"It's good for my airsickness, damnit!"

"What kind of bullshit is that?!"  
"Well, maybe you're too _senile_ to remember, but driving is supposed to cure airsickness!"

"Whoever the hell told you that was _lying_."

"Are you calling my dad a liar?!"

"Will you all just shut up?!" Leon screamed.

A long silence followed this sudden display of rage and most importantly, emotion. Yuffie for one, was completely and utterly stunned, to the point that she fell out of the pilot's chair. The exception to this disbelief was Cid Highwind, who with a whoop of glee, practically jumped into the seat only to fill the subsequent silence with a very, very loud, "Fuck!"

"Not in front of the kids!" Aerith chided, but this was lost to Leon's senses as he saw what Cid was cursing at.

"Heartless."

"No I'm not!" Aerith denied, looking a bit insulted.

"Aerith, he doesn't mean you. He mean that. Heartless," Kairi said while pointing at the front windscreen of the ship at the hordes of Heartless baring down on them.

"Ah fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fuck," Cid muttered under his breath as he begun to fiddle with almost every button on the navigation panel.

"Cid! Language!" Aerith scolded.

"Not now!" Cid snapped before exclaiming quite loudly, "Shit!"

"Don't give yourself an aneurysm old man," Yuffie chirped as she jumped into the chair behind all the weapon controls.

"Yuffie! Can't you shoot straight?" Cid yelled while forcing the ship into a spin. "You're missing all of them!"

"Well stop moving the ship around! I can't aim!"

"If I stop the ship, we'll be fucking Swiss cheese!"

Leon sighed. He hated to be indebted to Mr. Walking Hormones, but no one else on board knew how to aim a gun.

He was, however sorely tempted to tell Cid to just let the Heartless use the ship for target practice when Irvine gave him a cocky grin before he could even stoop so low as to even ask. "Guess you're going to need my help."

"Believe me, I would rather not," Leon snapped, but it was lost as Irvine draped himself behind Yuffie's chair. And instead of shoving her out as he had expected him to, he put his hands on her arms and helped her aim, a sly grin on his face.

Leon felt something that was almost affection for Yuffie when she scowled and elbowed him in the gut. It was quite impressive seeing how it was very difficult to aim both the guns and her arm, but she somehow managed it as Irvine backed off with a grimace on his face.

"Hey, no touchy pervert!"

"Damn, ninja girl. As cute as you are, you got one bony elbow. And you haven't hit anything. Even someone aiming at random would have hit something. Now just let me..."

"No! I can handle this. Just shut up and I'll..."

"God damnit, stop arguing and shoot!"

"Look out!" Kairi shrieked, her loud voice breaking through the squabbling.

"Too late," Donald said, as he strapped in his seat belt and pulled it tight just as the ship was sent into a tail spin when the Heartless managed to land a missile into the wing.

"Gosh, you're awfully calm about this," Goofy said.

"I'm in a happy place right now, Goofy. Don't talk to me."

"Sorry..."

"Riku," Sora whimpered from beside them, completely unaware of the fact that they were all possibly going to crash, burn, and perish in a ball of flames.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, _shi_-"

"Hey, I think I actually got one!" Yuffie shrieked.

"It's a bit late for that, don't you think?" Irvine asked as he somehow managed to make his way to a seat without stumbling. The only problem with that was the teeny, tiny issue that the seat was already occupied.

"Hey!" Selphie shrieked.

"Sorry!"

"You're not sorry!"

"Well, maybe not. So, um, I never caught your name..."

"Could you please flirt when we're not all about to die?!" Leon roared.

"We're going to die?!" Tidus demanded.

"We're not going to die," Aerith said calmly, although she was starting to look a little pale. Which was better than Tifa, who was looking green and ready to puke.

"Don't lie! We're going to die!" Tidus shrieked back, in a fit of hysteria.

"I'm telling you, we're not going to-"

"I don't want to die! I'm too young to die! I don't-"

"Shut the fuck up and listen to the lady! You're not going to die, or at least you're not going to die if you shut up because if you keep screaming like that I'll kill you myself! How would you like to deal with having a spear shoved up your-"

"_Cid_! Don't talk to him like that!"

"Well, in a few moments it isn't going to matter anyway," Leon muttered to himself as he braced himself.

The only response the world had to that was an explosive crash.

* * *

As the gummi ship holding the only people who may lay claim to saving, not only the world, but many worlds, possibly all of them, was going into a fiery death spiral, elsewhere on Disney Castle, Chip and Dale noticed a little twinkling in the sky. Which got bigger. And bigger.

Then became a meteor that was making a beeline for the castle.

So they scampered over to the Emergency alarm button. But, unfortunately, it was too big for their little chipmunk bodies, and so even the combined efforts of the two could not trigger the alarm. Fortunately Dale "ingeniously" tripped over his brother's foot and knocked over a large cup left by some unkempt mechanic which conveniently fell onto the button and tripped the alarm.

Right as a gummi ship carrying two keyblade wielders and their entourage slammed into the side of a tower on the castle.

"Uh...Chip?" Dale asked hesitantly while the two furry rodents stared at the ship pokey out from the side of the castle.

"Yeah?"

"Ain't that the throne room?"

"Yeah..."

"We should probably call for some help, shouldn't we?"

Chip smacked Dale. "We need to go find out if the queen is okay!!"

* * *

"I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!!"

Kairi grimaced as she petted Sora's back while he wept into a handful of broom splinters, trying to figure out something soothing to say but failing miserably as she was distracted by the sound of Leon methodically hitting his head against the ruined shell of the gummi ship, while Cid cried and cursed on the other side. Tidus was busy kissing the floor and thanking random deities for letting him live, while Wakka just looked rather embarrassed by the scene. Then again, he might have been embarrassed by the fact that Irvine was trying to hit on Selphie, which was reciprocated by Selphie stepping on his foot; despite that, she looked somewhat amused by his attentions.

"Sora, it's... it's okay," she said, but he just sobbed louder.

"I didn't mean to!"

"It wasn't your fault," Aerith said as she and Tifa tried to wake Queen Minnie up, who had fainted at the shock of having a ship crash land in her throne room. "You didn't crash the ship. It was the Heartless."

"But it was my fault they followed us! It was my fault they died! And it's my fault that Riku has-"

"Who cares about that goddamn brat?! Look at my ship!!" Cid screeched.

"Hyuk, do you think the insurance will pay for the damage Donald?"

"I hope so..." Donald looked a bit overwhelmed by the chaos overrunning the throne room.

"Well look at the good side," Goofy said, trying to cheer everyone up. "No one died, and since the room was so big and tall, this is the only part of the castle that was damaged."

When Sora heard this, he pulled the shards of broom closer to his chest and continued to sob.

"Uh...Goofy, the broomsticks..."

"Oh...well..." The optimistic knight looked a little lost for words at the sight of Sora crying over a broomstick handle.

"And my ship! My baby!" Cid looked like he was close to mimicking Sora's actions as he scooped up pieces of scrap scattered around the wreckage.

"Peanut butter and bell peppers!"

Leon had to momentarily stop slamming his head into the gummi ship ruins at the exclamation.

"Queen Minnie! Are you okay?"

Tifa slowly propped up the now conscious queen against her ruined throne while Aerith cast a healing spell.

This might not have been the best idea since this afforded Minnie a perfect view of the gaping hole that the gummi ship had ripped through the castle wall, causing her to swoon and faint again.

"Oh dear," Aerith sighed, as she tried to awaken Minnie again. Her efforts didn't seem to be working particularly well though, and she frowned slightly when the spells didn't work.

"It's just a small hole. Nothing a piece of tarp can't handle," Cid said coldly. "Not like my baby! My gummi ship! How are we supposed to ever fix that?!"

"Don't you have like... sixty gummi ships back at home?" Yuffie asked.

"That's completely beside the point! They're each a part of me! Each lovingly handcrafted! Each lovingly worked on! Each-"

"Hey, I think I found something here," Irvine said casually from where he had been rifling through a desk. "It looks like a letter of some sorts."

"Didn't your mother ever tell you that it's rude to go through other people's stuff?" Selphie asked, jumping up and down to peer over his shoulder. "Ooh, give me that! I wanna see it!"

"Sure, whatever you want," Irvine said as Selphie simply grabbed the letter from him, tearing it open eagerly.

"Dear Minnie," Selphie narrated, "I'm sorry I had to leave again, but there's something wrong with the universe again. I left to check things out. Right now, the only thing the stars tell me is to crossover to the plane of the undead. Please pass this letter onto Sora, Donald and Goofy. I'm sure they'll know what to do. Mickey."

"Well, that's interesting." Irvine drawled before turning to Donald. "Your king talks to the stars? Sounds like a fun person."

"He ran off again!?" Donald squawked.

"But at least he left us a note," Goofy tried to reason with Donald.

"He left a note last time! And he disappeared for a year!"

"Oh, you were asleep for more than half of that time anyway!" Sora snapped.

A silence followed this proclamation as everyone turned to stare at Sora, who was still cradling the broomstick shards and refusing to look at everyone. When nothing followed this, Kairi asked slowly, "Um... Sora?"

"What?" he whimpered. "I'm sorry! But being sorry isn't enough, is it? I'm sorry! Please know that I'm sorry!"

"That was sort of out of character for a little crybaby," Irvine observed as he sauntered over, Selphie in tow. "Or was that just me?"

"That… wasn't Sora. I think that was Roxas," Kairi said.

"What, he has split personality too?"

"No! I mean... well, sort of. Not really!"

"How can you sort of have split personalities?"

"It's not the same," Kairi replied. "And it's hard to explain. I don't think you'll get it if we tried."

"Right..." Irvine said, obviously suspicious. Then as a joke, he asked Kairi, "So if Sora has a sorta split personality, how 'bout you?"

"Er..."

"You're not serious."

"Well...I said it was hard to explain."

"So does everyone from your island have split personalities?"

"No, just Sora!" Yuffie chirped. "And Kairi, because she's special."

"How 'bout that crazy Riku boy? He must have a split personality."

"Actually..." Kairi trailed off, "He's not..."

"What? So you mean he usually acts like that!"

"Yup! Every time I've met him he's tried to kill someone!"

"No!" Kairi denied at the same time as Yuffie's outburst.

Irvine just gave her a look.

Kairi just scowled back, but before she could say something biting, Aerith interrupted politely, "The Queen is waking up."

Irvine stretched lazily, "You know, I don't know about you guys, but me, I would rather get out of here before I get screamed at about that hole in the wall. But like I said, that might just be me."

Tifa looked scandalized, "We can't do that! That's just wrong! It's our responsibility for what happened, and-"

"And I think it's time we left. If we don't leave now, we'll have to stick around and explain things and don't we have better things to do than that?"

"You know, he has a point," Yuffie said. "Let's scram before Minnie wakes up. She's probably just going to faint again anyway, and then we'll have to stick around even longer. Isn't it more important to go and do what the king says instead of playing babysitter? 'Cause this is starting to get pretty boring, if you know what I mean!"

"But!" Tifa didn't know what to say to that so she turned to Leon instead, who was developing a pretty bruise on his forehead but still managed to look rather imposing nevertheless. "Leon, say something! We can't just leave like-"

Leon looked at Tifa, then Sora, then Irvine. Then he looked at the hole in the wall, thought about how he had reacted that time Cid and Merlin had gotten into an argument and blown up a few recently completed buildings, and realized that if he was in Minnie's position, he wouldn't let them leave until after the damage was repaired, world crisis or not.

That, in short, made his decision relatively easy and most importantly, guilt-free.

"Let's go."

* * *

"Your Majesty!"

Minnie woke up to the sound of squeaking in her ears.

"Your Majesty! Please wake up! There's a big problem!"

"Bigger than the hole in my roof?" Minnie sighed as she sat up and saw Chip and Dale jumping up and down on the marble floor.

"Uh…well…I mean, Sora and the rest did apologize for crash landing in the tower before they left but…."  
"They left?" Minnie asked, shocked that they would run out like that.

"They said it was an emergency. They went to find the king!" Chip informed her.

"Yup yup, in the Underworld!" Dale added.

"The Underworld!" Minnie gasped.

"Donald said not to worry. He said the king can't be dead because he just told them to go to the Underworld in the letter." Dale said, trying to act sagely.

"Letter? What letter?"

And the letter in question was dangled in front of Minnie face. She took the letter and turned to give her thanks to find it was a broomstick who had handed it to her.

"Goose liver and apricots! What happened?!"

Minnie could only stare in disbelief at the army of broomsticks that now filled her throne room. The only free space in the room was the small area around her throne. Even poor Chip and Dale were threatened by splinters because of the lack of distance between them and a broomstick loomed over them.

"Well, Your Majesty," Chip began, "that was the other problem. All the broomsticks that were in here cleaning up were all destroyed in the crash. And well…I know the king had enchanted them, so…"

"Oh…fudgesticks and vanilla ice cream."

End Notes:  
Have we broken any brains yet?


	3. Swirly Whirlpool of Doom

Title: Playing with Fire  
PM Notes: This chapter has been done for a while but it took us a bit of time to do the next chapter. Oh well; it's pretty expected for us.

_Chapter 3_

"So let me get this straight. After repeatedly stopping my plans to kill Hercules—thus ending my plans to take over this world, may I just add—and tossing me around my _own_ Underworld, you expect me to just _help_ you out? And, no less, with making your way to the dead plane which really isn't easy as pie considering how you're, I don't know, _alive_ still?" Hades glared at them all in anger, and was somewhat disappointed when nobody looked at all intimidated by his awesome might and power. "Although you know, if you really want to go there, there's a much _easier_ way. All you need is to take those nice, fancy little weapons you all have and, I don't know, have a fight to the death! It'll be wonderful; I'll sell tickets, we can get some refreshments, maybe have our own little concession stand, and whoever lives can share the profits with me while the ones who died… well, you'll just be going where you wanted to go so everyone will be hap-"

"Not funny," Leon snapped, having lost his patience long ago with the god of the underworld. "We need passage to the dead plane, and we need to be _alive_ when it happens."

"Tough luck," Hades replied. "I don't see anything in it for _me_ to help you. Unless, unless…." With this, he sidled over to Leon, who nearly recoiled with a look of pure disgust. "Unless you… want to bargain? Huh? Say… heyyyy, here's a familiar face!"

Tifa stepped in front of Cloud's prone body as she said firmly "You're not getting him." She gave Leon an angry, 'I told you so' look; she hadn't wanted to bring Cloud, but then they didn't have much of a choice. It was too dangerous to bring those three useless brats from Destiny Islands here, so they had left them in the ship. And while they had originally planned on leaving Cloud behind too… well, they hadn't even all gotten off the ship when Tidus had started drawing on Cloud's face with a permanent market (nobody knew where it had come from), and Leon had simply decided to use leadership rights to have Cloud brought with them (with Irvine having the pleasure of lugging the dead weight around).

"Now missy, why would you say that? Why would I want the ungrateful little brat?"

Tifa looked a bit hesitant, unsure of what to say to Hades. Or it could be that he was standing up in her face, questioning her while a blue hand reached out and petted Cloud's head.

"But…" Hades drawled, "I'll be more than happy to take Spiky off of your hands, since you offered so kindly."

"No!" Tifa responded angrily.

"What can he do? I'm sure he's really useful in his comatose state. So, wouldn't it be better to, oh, rid yourself of a load? Don't worry, I'll take good care of him. I promise. He'll be my special slave."

"What!? Slave?!" Tifa and Yuffie exclaimed at the same time, except, while Tifa sounded shocked and concerned, Yuffie sounded shocked and excited.

"And, if you're so worried," Hades said slyly, sliding a finger under Tifa's chin, "You can stay and be special slave number two."

"No one is going to be a slave to anyone!" Donald yelled angrily, causing Hades to glare at him.

"You," the god said very slowly, "I would use as dinner."

"What?!" Donald squawked loudly.

"Yes, dinner," Hades smirked at him. "A little bit of salt, a little bit of pepper… maybe some Mrs. Dash seasoning. And a nice big apple to put in that scrawny little beak of-"

But before Donald could scream, strike Hades with lightning, bash him in the head with his staff, or give him a good old fashioned bite on the leg, a loud, melodious voice called out, "Honey! I'm home! Come and give me a hug, a kiss, and some love and sexing!"

Kairi, Aerith, and Tifa blushed at this, but their combined flushes were nowhere near as red as Hades had gotten. Surprisingly though, it wasn't the red of anger that Hades often became during a battle; instead, it was embarrassment pure and simple, and perhaps even a little bit of fear as well.

"Who is-?" Sora started, but Hades wasn't listening as he quickly turned to Pain and Panic, who were shivering where they stood.

"What is she doing here?! _What_ is she _doing_ here?!" he shrieked. "She wasn't supposed to be back until next Wednesday! That's when the winter begins, and-"

"Maybe she decided to come back early?" Pain suggested.

"Why the hell would she come back early?!"

"Well, maybe-"

"Honey!" While still bright, there was a slight edge to the endearment that made the once mighty god whimper. "Where _are_ you?"

"Over here!" Hades yelled, his voice cracking ever so slightly. "Just… just making dinner preparations."

"Dinner? Since when do you make preparations for dinner?" As the cheerful voice got closer, the three inhabitants of the Underworld seemed to shiver and tremble more violently. "Don't you usually starve yourself when I'm not around to watch you? That or eat that awful, greasy Chinese take-out. Honestly, when I'm not home you don't even look after your health."  
"God of the Underworld!" Hades yelled back at the feminine voice. "God, as in, doesn't die. Doesn't need to eat. Doesn't need to do anything to keep on existing!"

"But still. You need to take care of yourself. I mean…"

Everyone gawked as a young woman walked into Hades's throne room and stared at the group in front of her.

Hades's face morphed from one of panic to one of horror when he saw her face light up.

"Company! Why Hades darling, you should have told me you had friends over."

"They're not friends! And anyway, they're leaving. Yes. Right now. They're leaving _right_ now if they know what's good for them…." Hades's voice had trailed off in the end, particularly when Leon raised an eyebrow and Yuffie began to giggle uncontrollably.

"What was that, dearest?" the woman asked sweetly.

"Nothing."

"That's what I thought," she replied smugly. After a silence as they stared at each other, she suddenly asked, "Aren't you going to introduce us?"

Hades looked quite pained, although whether that was at the thought of introducing them to the woman or vice versa, nobody could really tell. Finally, after a moment of indecision, he said in a somewhat strangled voice, "This is Persephone, Queen of the Underworld."

Silence. Then, Persephone added perkily, "I'm his wife."

The thought of Hades being married was mind-boggling in itself. The fact that said wife was… instead of wearing dark and drab colors as might be expected of someone in such a position, Persephone wore a dress of bright pink that left little to imagination when it came to her figure. Of course, 'dress' was a nice way of putting it. There was a reason why Irvine was wolf-whistling at the woman who, along with her outfit, would look quite at home in a lingerie magazine. Besides this, she also had long golden hair, large green eyes, and breasts that put Tifa's to shame.

Of course, at this everyone was obligated to stare, and Hades did not like this one bit. He snapped, "Couldn't you have worn something less… well, something more _modest_?"

Persephone blinked at him, "But I wore this especially for you! I thought that… after our long absence, you might be feeling a little… _frisky_."

While Hades turned red and opened and closed his mouth like a fish, Persephone spied Hades's two loyal minions and snapped, "Pain! Panic! What are you doing?! Go get some refreshments for our guests!"

"Yes! Right away Your Majesty!"

As the two scampered away, Persephone turned and stared Hades down. "And you, don't you have any manners?! Can't even receive guests. I don't know why Zeus put you in charge of the Underworld. How can you welcome people to their new lives after living when you can't even treat the people who are still alive properly! Look," she said, indicating Sora. "The poor child obviously needs something sweet to eat! He's so tired that he's huddled in that horrible, drab corner. Pain! Panic! Hurry up!"

"Yes, coming!" Two strangled voices could barely be heard over the pattering of feet.

Pain and Panic burst into the room: one was carrying a tray laden with a pitcher while the other held a plate of cookies. Huffing and puffing, the two imps waddled up to Persephone and offered their trays up to her.

Smiling, Persephone leaned over and picked up the lid of the pitcher. However, once she took a look inside, her smile was replaced instantly with a frown.

She looked up at Hades and gave him a frosty glare.

"Pomegranate juice? Didn't I tell you I don't like you drinking this stuff?"

"But…it's the specialty of the Underworld!" Hades protested.

Whirling back and fixing her eyes on Pain, she snapped, "Pain! Go get the lemonade. Now!"

Again, a stunned silence followed this, particularly since her eyes had turned fire red at the order. Nobody was stupid enough to mess with the Queen of the Dead, Her Most Royal Evilness, Mistress of Both the Underworld and the Living If You Know What Is Good For You So Sacrifice To Her Immediately… especially when she looked ready to spit flames. Pain and Panic eeped and hustled to do what she ordered, and with a cheerful smile she glided over to Hades to cling to his arm, "So… introductions?"

With a great deal of reluctance, Hades did as he was commanded, breezing through the introductions quickly and with a lack of snark that was terrifying. But even though he just gave names and no summaries of the various occupational hazards each person had to face on a daily basis, Persephone seemed to glow when it came to Sora.

"I know you, Mr. Keyblade Master!" she gushed. "I've heard all about you! Pleasure to meet you and… is something wrong?"

Sora was staring at her with dead eyes as he said in a strangled voice, "We left another friend behind."

"Did you?" she said, immediately shooting Hades an accusatory look. By this point he was practically ghost white as he shook his head desperately, trying to convey that this was _not_ his fault. **For once**.

"Yes," Sora replied. "Goofy. Goofy stayed behind…."

"He volunteered to, Sora, so that Selphie and the others wouldn't be by themselves on that ship," Kairi reminded him, but Sora still looked ready to burst into tears at any moment. Kairi quickly turned to Persephone, trying to explain the tension, "He's been through a lot lately. I mean… first Riku and then the broomsticks…."

"Oh, the poor thing!" Persephone said, reaching over to grab Sora and hug him against her (ample) bosom, much to the dismay of Hades and Irvine. "We'll just have to figure out a way to cheer you up, won't we!"

With Sora still tucked into her chest, she spun around and grabbed a cookie from the plate of cookies Panic, who had scuttled back into the room with Pain somewhere during the introductions, was holding out to her for the last few minutes with outstretched arms.

"Here child, have a cookie," Persephone cooed as she shoved it into Sora mouth. "They'll make you feel better. I know I always feel better when I have them. First thing I do when I return to Olympus is eat a whole plateful of cookies!"

"Umm…Your Evilness?" Pain began hesitantly while eyeing Sora who looked slightly blue from having his mouth overloaded with the baked treat, "Our food is not meant for the living to eat."

When the little red imp mentioned this, Hades's face seemed to light up and his slightly blue complexion return.

"Well, that's too bad then," Hades drawled. "I guess that means that the keyblade brat will just have to stay here then, since only a creature from the Underworld may partake in the food from the Underworld. In fact…"

While Hades began a long lecture as to how and why eating food from the Underworld tied a person to the Underworld, Panic, straining under his load of cookies, turned to the group that was trying not to fall asleep on their feet and stated cheerfully, "That's how he got his wife!"

Persephone, after being reminded of this unfortunate fact, lifted her nose and sniffed, "I didn't even get proper wedding. No courtship period either, mind you. But don't worry," she said as she turned to a panicking Donald and patted him on the head, "these are special cookies from Olympus. My mother baked them. Best oatmeal raisin cookies in the world, if I may say so. It could be due to the fact that my mother is the Goddess of the Harvest."

When he heard his wife's little comment, Hades paused mid-sentence before turning around, cursing violently, and kicking Pain across the room.

"Hades!" Persephone scolded, "Not in front of the company. And how can you treat your subjects like that. What kind of ruler are you?"

Before Hades could reply, Sora piped up, "Hey! These are good! Can I have another?"

Leon blinked while the others gaped in shock as Persephone smiled fondly at Sora and handed him another cookie, which Sora immediately wolfed down with relish.

"Well… um… that was a fast recovery," Yuffie said.

* * *

"Whadda ya mean I can't go!" Yuffie's shrieks followed them as they followed Hades toward the 'Swirly Green Pit of Bodies Swirling Around in a Swirly Whirl!', aptly named by Persephone herself. "I want to go too! Why can't I go?! I'm a team player! I should be able to go! Why am I being stuck here babysitting Sleeping Beauty while everyone else gets to go and have fun and kick dead people ass while saving the world and-"

There was a silence, and then Yuffie's voice could be heard again—albeit a little happier, "Why, I would love to have some cookies!"

"Do you really think it was a good idea to leave Yuffie behind?" Tifa asked Leon as they made their way up a creepy staircase, trying not to grimace at the maggots going through the slimy handrails. "I mean…."

"Someone needs to stay behind to make sure that Hades doesn't try to do something to Cloud," Leon replied simply. "I don't trust him as far as I could throw him."

"But you could throw him pretty far, Leon," Aerith reminded him. He made a very mature face at her.

"Yes, but… that isn't what I'm worried about. I'm worried about leaving _Yuffie_ behind with Cloud."

Leon took a moment to quell the urge to throw himself off the stairs. Finally, he said, "… they'll live."

"Not if I have something to say about it," Hades grumbled as he pushed open an ornate iron door, inscribed with the words, "_Enter and Despair, For Ye Did Not Have Good Life Insurance."_

"Um… what does that mean?" Sora asked Donald quietly, but Hades must have overheard or anticipated the question.

"Well, since their relatives didn't have enough money to give them the passage fare to the… better parts of the Underworld… well, you know what they say! We don't accept credit card or money orders, and we certainly don't accept charity cases!"

"Er…."

"So those who don't have the money to get in, we just toss them in this pit of swirling green bodies!"

"For all of eternity?" Tifa asked, looking shocked.

"For **all** of eternity," Hades affirmed, looking somewhat happier at the thought.

Tifa, in comparison, looked a little green at the concept.

"So…how does this neon colored pit help us with our mission?" Irvine asked, staring down into the endless cyclone, wondering if he dropped a pebble down the center, whether there was a bottom for it to hit.

"Well," Hades said, sidling up next to Irvine, "The 'Swirly Green Pit of Bodies Swirling Around in a Swirly Whirl' is the passage to the Dead Plane that you _so_ wanted to go to."

"But, don't the dead make up the 'Swirly Whirlpool of Doom'?" Irvine asked. "So why do you have a Dead Plane?"

"'Swirly Whirlpool of Doom?'" Hades repeated, rubbing his chin in thought. "That's sound quite menacing. Maybe I should rename the 'Swirly Green Pit of Bodies Swirling Around in a Swirly Whirl!'"

Leon snorted. "Only if you think your wife will let you because; as she told us twelve times before, she was the one who named it."

Hades paled slightly. "Oh right. Well," he cleared his throat before answering Irvine's question. "Logistics my dear cowboy," he said while wrapping an arm around a cringing Irvine. "Do you know how many people die a day? And how long some of these souls have been down here for? There's no possible way to keep all these spirits here. Now, think of this level as the lobby of the hotel, and the underneath is were all the rooms are. And the 'Swirly Green Pit of Bodies Swirling Around in a Swirly Whirl!' is the elevator. The noisiest ones go into the deepest levels."

"Noisy?" Aerith asked, looking confused.

"Have you heard ghostly wailing before?" Hades turned to her and asked while looking offended. "The moaning and groaning. And whining about how 'I should have done that while I was alive,' or 'I should have killed her when I had the chance,' or the 'Why the hell did I marry him, that lazy bastard!' It's enough to drive a guy insane!"

There was a long silence before Irvine said, "Right…" as he tried to lift Hades's hand off from his shoulder.

At Irvine's movement, Hades turned and gave him a long stare.

"Well," he began, "If you're in such a hurry, this is how you get to the Dead Plane." And with no warning whatsoever, Hades shoved Irvine down the center of the 'Swirly Green Pit of Bodies Swirling Around in a Swirly Whirl!'

Hades then turned to the rest with a grin, relishing Irvine's screams echoing off the cavern walls, and asked, "So, who's next?"

End Notes:  
Oh come on, Hades is awesome!  
And next chapter will be up… sometime before the next ice age. Yes. That is about as specific as we are going to get right now.


	4. Resting in Relative Peace

**Title: Playing With Fire**

_Chapter 4_

"Burn damnit, burn!"

Demyx watched in horror as for the twentieth time in the past ten seconds, Axel let out a scream of rage and set the field on fire. The flowers burned as orange and red flames licked through them, causing the field to smell of flowers and ash before as suddenly as it had come, the flames went out leaving blackened husks everywhere.

There was a silence, and then green tendrils began creeping out of the ground. It took only seconds for the entire field to return to its previous pristine state, the yellow sunflowers mocking Axel once again.

"Goddamnit!" Axel yelled, kicking at a flower and hopping away when the flower tried to bite off his shoes. "I'm… going to kill… that damn bastard… Marluxia! He knows… he knows I'm allergic to sunflowers!" The pauses were punctuated by loud sneezes, and Demyx tried not to grimace as Axel practically looked like he was crying, although he knew for a fact that the tears came from the allergic reaction and were not, as some would put it, tears of frustration. Although it was becoming a likely possibility as Axel screamed in fury again and set the field of flowers on fire. Again.

"Doesn't he ever get tired of that?" Zack asked from beside Rinoa, who looked positively aghast at the destruction taking place before her.

"You know what they say about getting through to tiny brains," a cold voice drawled from beside him. Demyx made a face at Kuja, who just continued to watch Axel trying to get the flowers to **stay** dead with no little amusement, the flames of hell reflecting in his eyes.

"Yeah, but you have to admit it's starting to get a little old. And who's this Marluxia guy he keeps ranting about? Even I'm ready to go kick his ass, if it'll stop Axel from screeching like a gutted hyena."

"I don't think that will help," Rinoa said. "The flowers aren't connected to anybody in particular; they're a part of this world, and nobody but a god can get rid of them."

"Yes, well, do me a favor and do not inform Axel of that piece of information," Kuja said. "This is far too entertaining after the boredom I have dealt with for the past four years."

"Look, just because you look like a woman doesn't mean I can just _forget_ that underneath that man skirt you have _male bits_."

_Oh god, oh god! Too much information!_ Demyx's mind screamed as he desperately clutched his sitar like a security blanket, but horror kept his lips glued together despite every sense of self-preservation begging him to say something _before his ears bled_.

Luckily though, something caught his eyes and his head practically swiveled 240 degrees as he cried out (in a very high-pitched, squeaky sort of way), "There's someone over there!" Not that he really cared, but anything to keep Zack and Kuja from continuing that conversation. He was already going to be emotionally scarred for life, and would not be able to keep his eyes closed for more than two seconds before being barraged with icky mental images that would make him want to commit suicide. The only problem with that statement was that… well, technically being dead already, committing suicide wouldn't get him very far. He would probably just wake up in pain and with the same mental images still dancing across his eyelids, threatening to blind him and drive him insane.

However, Demyx felt that the situation had turned from bad to worse (which was hard to do, considering how horrible everything was already, just because of the conversation) when he noticed that the person who had caught his eye had turned to face him and was now staring back. With his red eyes. Red creepy eyes.

"ZACK!" Demyx grabbed Zack's arm and drew him out of his argument with Kuja. "There's a vampire in that tree! It's going to swoop down and suck all our bloods and kill us all! Again! I don't want to die again!"

Demyx was not comforted at all when Zack just cheerfully replied, "Oh don't worry. That's just Vinny. He tries to be all intimidating and everything, but he's a big fluffy bunny really."

And it really was not reassuring that once Zack said that, Vinny, the not-a-vampire, raised a gun and shot Zack.

"Damnit Vincent! Not there!"

Demyx wished the ground could swallow him whole and take him to a nice place without pyromaniacs hell-bent on burning down the pretty field of flowers and scary not-a-vampire in a tree.

Demyx realized that this was probably his punishment for eating all that ice cream in bed. And helping an evil organization try and take over the world, but who would hold a grudge over that? Still, seeing as how he was dead and stuck here, he might as well try and make something good of it. Or go to his happy place. Happy place was good. And safe.

And thus, Demyx propped up his sitar and begun to play his happy song in a frantic attempt to block out the chaos and perversion around him.

"Demyx! Stop it! You're making my ears bleed!"

It was really a pity that once Demyx immersed himself in his happy place, he was deaf to everything except the harmonious sounds of his sitar.

"_Demyx_! Don't make me chakram your ass! I swear I will if you keep playing that bloody sitar!" Axel screamed at his once colleague before breaking out into a fit of sneezes. "Dammit! I knew it. Marluxia sent you, didn't he?! He sent you here to torture me for eternity! I'll get you Marluxia!"

Rinoa watched Axel curse the heavens before turning to Zack and calmly stating, "I think he sounds rather good." And, before anyone could move a muscle, Rinoa sat down next to Demyx and started humming along with Demyx's sitar.

Zack thought it was a good time to get Vincent to come down and join the festivities. However, as he soon realized from the shower of bullets coming down at him, shaking the tree was not a good way to get Vincent in a celebratory mood. Or out of the tree.

Kuja, on the other hand, had never been this amused in the whole four years he had been dead. Sure, Demyx wasn't the most skillful player, but he wasn't as off tune as Axel made him out to be. And, in Kuja's most honest opinion, the screams and weeping (and violent sneezing) from Axel- who was now huddled on the grass in the middle of a pack of sunflowers- added to the lovely melody.

However, Kuja was horribly disappointed when Axel stopped making all those delicious noises and instead lifted his head to survey the area, much like how a hunting dog tries to sniff out its prey.

Rinoa also noticed Axel's abrupt actions and asked, "Axel, what's wrong?"

Kuja knew his fun was over once Axel turned to look at them and said, "My Roxie has come!"

Zack twisted his head to stare at Axel with a puzzled look on his face. "Your what has come where? How do you know this?"

"My Roxas senses are tingling."

Only the strumming of Demyx's sitar could be heard for a moment before Zack started snickering and muttered under his breath, "I think something else of yours is tingling."

Demyx's sitar made a horrible twang as its player stared at Zack in horror.

* * *

Saix was a very, very angry beaver. Not literally a beaver, as a Saix beaver would be a very disturbing sight indeed (although it admittedly might add to his typical lack of charm), but he was at least very angry. 

This was probably due to the fact that his love muffin was being pressed against the wall by an evil mad scientist, who looked about three seconds from licking his evil mad scientist tongue across Xemnas's beautiful, unblemished face.

It was a surprise that Saix did not go into berserker mode right then and there, but kind of him to refrain so as to allow the story to move forward with Very Important Plot Point Explanations.

"Do you really think anyone is going to believe that you are just trying to give me a medical exam?" Xemnas asked, sounding somewhat bemused as Hojo groped him merrily. Well, as bemused as one could be when someone is being molested, plus the fact that Xemnas very technically did not have emotions (making it somewhat unlikely that he really did sound bemused). Still, he tried, and got an A for effort even if he did not sound very sincere.

"Why wouldn't they?"

"Seeing how we are dead, I don't think being in the peak of health is very necessary for you and I."

"Better safe than sorry," Hojo replied in a slight sing-song that had once made many an unlucky and unwilling experiment subject whimper in fear and abject horror. "Besides, you never used to complain about my medical exams when we were-"

"That was another lifetime ago," Xemnas cut off, giving Saix's nonexistent heart a little leap of joy and hope that maybe he had a chance, the fact that they lacked feelings aside. "We were young. We didn't know better. You were much better looking."

"Look, just because I'm balding a little—damnit, I tried! I tried to make a hair growth potion but it didn't work! Or rather… it did work, but a little too well… I was shedding hair for three weeks."

Saix shuddered while Xemnas snorted, "A mental image I did not need to have. Could we get on with the update on the status of our evil plans? What is Jenova up to this time? This had better be a more effective plan than the last. Xaldin still has not fully recovered from the bites of those bloody rabbits."

"Since when have you cared about the state of your minions?"

"Did I say I cared? Caring requires a heart," Xemnas replied coldly. "And according to chick flicks, tear ducts."

"Does it? Then what are those two… what's his name, Zexion, I believe and that big one—he's not pretty enough for me to bother remembering his name—they seem to care for each other quite a bit. Well, at least they're always trying to have sex with their clothes on."

"It's just the memory of caring. If we actually could care, we would have our hearts. And if we had our hearts, we would not have to bother… cooperating with you and that alien." Xemnas couldn't help but shiver at that. Despite having dealt with monsters of many a kind, Xemnas had never dealt with anyone quite like Jenova, who was freakish to an unimaginable degree. For someone who spent most of her time just floating around and issuing orders through a mouthpiece like _Hojo_, there was still something distinctly creepy about her tentacles always waving this way and that, which made him shiver every time he turned around. It was like he could _feel_ the tentacles reaching for him, and while fear was not an emotion he quite felt anymore, the feeling was still more than enough to keep him always looking backwards.

"And I thought we were helping each other out for old time's sake." Hojo's fingers trailed up Xemnas's thigh, an evil grin on his face.

"If that is what you want to think," Xemnas replied, smacking the hand away (causing Saix to give a silent cheer). "But old times mean nothing to a Nobody."

"Don't be so dramatic. The plans to escape the Underworld are going well. We did not even have to do anything—that meddling mouse moved our plans forward quite nicely, with no help from us. That boy Riku was supposed to bring the keybearer here after thoroughly ravishing him, but instead the idiot came here of his own free will!" At this point, Hojo cackled evilly. And paused to grope Xemnas again, as it had been some time since the last round of improper touching.

And because Important Plot Point Explanation was for the most part over, it turned out to be a perfect moment for Saix to decide that enough was _enough_, and there would be no more improper touching of **his** love muffin if he had anything to do with it.

So this time, when Hojo tried to orally molest the very bored and very unconcerned Xemnas, he was met instead with a claymore to the head.

* * *

The shack shook. 

There was a silence, and then Xigbar said, "Ten gil that Saix finally destroys that place, leaving us bereft of a 'secret headquarters' and therefore unable to ever escape the sight of two certain horny-"

"Thank you, Xigbar, but that is sufficient explanation," Luxord interrupted. "I will wager twenty gil that the place will stand, seeing how it is part of the Underworld and has and will continue to stand here for all of eternity, regardless of Saix having a berserker rage inside of it."

"You're no fun," Xigbar grumbled as he watched the shack continue to shake, the sounds of screams and cursing echoing from it. He had to admit though that Luxord had a point; when the Organization members had come here, the shack had already been here, occupied by one mad scientist and an alien creature with way too many tentacles to make anyone comfortable. And despite the fact that Saix had daily temper tantrums that should have brought the place down, and the time Xaldin had decided to use the shack for target practice with his lances, and that time Lexaeus had nearly ripped the place apart trying to find Zexion (about to become the latest victim of one of Hojo's experiments), and not to mention that incident with the bunnies—the shack still stood. But then, it never hurt to hope, particularly when there was just really nothing else to do for entertainment.

No, for the most part, being dead was a serious drag. As of now what it meant was being stuck with the same people that he had already been stuck with for the majority of his existence as a Nobody, and even back then he hadn't exactly been fond of those people. Even though they weren't really… bad people when they weren't backstabbing each other at periodic intervals, being with them for so long meant it was terribly predictable. And to Xigbar, predictable translated to **boring**.

At least, besides the aforementioned incident with the bunnies. It was a shame that Xemnas wouldn't let him keep one to train; it might have made non-life a lot more bearable with something as psychotically rabid as Saix in a Xemnas-protective berserker mode was. Xigbar had even come up with a name for it (Fluffy McFoo), but Xemnas had forced him to release the thing before he could teach it to fetch.

Yes, Xigbar really _was_ just that desperate.

Luckily for his non-sanity, however, entertainment came in the form of one Cloaked Schemer and one Silent Hero. Well, if by entertaining one meant potentially _blinding_. It wasn't that Xigbar took issue to the relationship—and if he did, it was more due to that question of how two people without hearts could like one another, although that could be answered by the fact that gratuitous hot sex does not actually _require_ affection; in fact, in some cases it is preferable not to have any feelings for one another—but how they wouldn't _stop_. Didn't they ever need to breathe?

… oh yes. Forgot. Dead people don't have to breathe.

"Come to grace us with your presence?" Luxord asked cheerfully. "Or has the sex haze finally worn off?"

Zexion sniffed haughtily, which had less than its desired effect due to the hicky on his pale neck. "We thought we would inform you that the keybearer and his companions have arrived."

"Oh?" Luxord looked interested. "And how would you know that?"

Before Zexion or Lexaeus could respond, Xigbar interrupted, "Man, don't tell me you forgot. Zexion's a certified sniffer dog!" To top it off he reached over to pet the shorter Nobody on the head, smirking as Zexion bared his teeth in a very canine-like manner, although the irony seemed lost on him.

"I am not a damn animal!" VI snapped. But before he could continue, Lexaeus—much to Xigbar's disappointment—gently covered Zexion's mouth and-

"Oh dear," Luxord said. "I think it is time we make a quick exit."

"Think you're right," Xigbar said, smirk turning to horror as a soft moan seemed to echo through the field. "Let's go check on Xaldin. Wonder if he's still bleeding from that bite on his forehead?"

* * *

PAS notes: Hope you enjoyed it. To insure chaos, drop us a review. 

Next chapter up sometime between now and then.


	5. Hanging Chad

**Title: Playing With Fire**

_Chapter 5_

"Hey! Look at that!"

"Come back Sora!"

"But there are pigeons! A field full of pigeons! Pigeons!"

"Yes, we can see that Sora," Leon said dryly while holding onto the collar of Sora's shirt.

In response, Sora turned around and stared at Leon with large teary eyes before stating indignantly, "There is a field full of pigeons! Pigeons waiting for someone to run through them!"

Leon just turned to Tifa and gave her one of _those_ looks.

"Come one Sora," Tifa said, while wrapping an arm around Sora's shoulder to try and distract him from the birds, "Leave the poor pigeons alone. They probably can't handle the shock of someone running through them."

"But…but…"

"Oh just let him," Irvine drawled, "Maybe it'll burn off some of his energy."

His argument seemed to convince Tifa because she turned to Sora and said, "Well, I guess so…"

That was all Sora needed for in less than a second, Sora was dashing through the throng of pigeons, scattering them every which way.

"No," Leon groaned into his hand. He turned and glared at Irvine and Tifa. "Now we'll never get him back."

Irvine just looked calmly back at Leon with a "what do you want me to do because it was totally not my fault" look on his face while Tifa looked flustered and guilty.

On the other hand, Kairi looked longingly at Sora frolicking through the grey birds before volunteering. "At least Yuffie isn't here 'cause you know she'd be out there with him. Anyway, I'll go get him." And before anyone could stop her, she dashed straight to Sora, laughing as the pigeons took flight to avoid her

It finally took several minutes before Kairi managed to pry Sora (and herself) away from the scattering birds who didn't seem to know how to run away from their spiky headed tormentor.

"Now that _that_ is out of your systems," Leon growled, "Can we get going? I'd prefer it if we could get a move on and get out of here as fast as we can before our stay here become permanent."  
"Bossy enough?" Irvine scoffed. "Who made you leader?"

"I did," was the sharp reply.

"Hey! I don't get a say in this?"

"No."

"But…why you?"

"Do you see anyone else here fit to lead?"

"Me!" Various voices answered Leon's question only to be glared at.

"Hey," Irvine said with a wink. "At least I'm nicer."

Leon's scathing retort was cut off by a high pitched shrieking noise that sounded oddly like, "Axel! You pervert!"

The scream was sufficient enough to squelch the impending squabble when curiosity overrode any other emotions.

"Hey that came from over there!" Sora chirped before dashing off in a seemingly random direction, and Donald followed closely behind him.

"Wait!" Aerith cried, following Sora.

Leon rolled his eyes before signaling the others to follow after the hyperactive keyblade master. The rest came at a more leisurely pace, but they broke out into a run when they heard Sora and Donald squawk loudly and Aerith scream.

Running through a large expanse of land filled with gopher holes (surprisingly no one sprained an ankle considering how no one was really looking where they were going), the party arrived in a field of sunflowers. And in the large patch of yellow flowers, Sora was being hugged by a man with red hair and dressed in a long black coat. Donald, a loyal and true friend, was trying to club the man assaulting Sora to death, but being short made its attempts useless.

"Get off me, you damn kidnapping bastard!" Sora snapped while squirming in the hug, indicating that Roxas was surfacing because a split second later, Sora did a 180 degree flip in attitude and returned the hug. "Axel! Found you!"

While Sora and Roxas were struggling for control of the body, which resulted in a odd dance of hugging and slapping, Aerith was facing down with a man whose hair could rival Cloud's or Sora's in terms of height and spikiness. Leon quickly recognized the look on Aerith's face as one of 'not pleased,' and frankly, it scared him because Aerith was rarely angry. And when she was, everyone knew better than to get in her way.

This black haired man (who looked oddly familiar to Leon) seemed to know this too because he was backing away with his hand held out to try and appease Aerith's anger.

"Aerith, baby," he stuttered, "What are you doing here? I didn't expect to see you for a while. You…you didn't die did you?" He finished with frown on his face and then scowled, "Did Sephiroth do it? 'Cause I swear, I warned him that if he pulled shit like this, I'd…"

"Zack," Aerith snapped, interrupting Zack mid-sentence. "Shut up."

"Yes dear." Zack clicked his mouth shut and stood to attention, assuming a rigid military pose.

Leon suddenly remembered who this was.

Zackary Fair. Aerith's old boyfriend. Who died in a very…tragic accident. Leaving Aerith quite upset…and angry.

Leon unconsciously rubbed his arm, reminiscing on how Aerith was quite violent when she was in mourning. If she was that upset when she found out Zack died, Leon was glad he wasn't Zack, because seeing an old girlfriend after…is that…_oh god_.

Leon gaped when he saw one of Zack's companions in the afterlife and stared at her while Aerith lectured Zack in the background.

"And then… I can't believe… I can't believe you could be _that stupid_!" Aerith yelled, although she sounded both dumbfounded and almost… _amused_. "You touched the moogle's pom pom! You're never supposed to touch moogle pom poms—how many times were we told that as children? You remember what happened to Zell when _he_ did it! Why else do you think he got that tattoo on his face—to cover up the scratch marks!"

"Aerith, please," Zack said in a pleading sort of way, and Leon quite wanted to do the same thing—hopefully with less of a whimper than Zack, or at least a manly-sounding one—as he was staring at someone he had not seen since the attack of the Heartless at Radiant Garden.

"Rinoa," Leon croaked. "I-"

"Squall!" Rinoa shrieked, running over to throw her arms around his neck. Everyone stopped to stare at this, including Sora (or possibly Roxas, as Axel's latest attempts to kiss his one true love had resulted in a punch to the face, but then this was an appropriate reaction for just about anyone) and Aerith (who was in the middle of a lecture on how Zack deserved to get run over by that chocobo, a suitable punishment for illegal pom pom touching), at the fact that Leon did nothing to deter Rinoa but mutter, "It's _Leon._" Except Rinoa was shrieking too loudly to hear the grumble, and Leon seemed too stunned to correct her again. Or push her off.

"Rinoa Heartilly?" Cid asked, sounding genuinely confused for probably once in his life. "As in Rinoa Heartilly who worked at 'Carbuncle'? That insanely girly clothing store where everything is pink or purple or some other disgusting color? Why do you know her Leon?" Cid watched as Leon's neck turned red.

"You didn't tell them Squall?" Leon found it hard to meet Rinoa's eyes when she asked him.

"Well…"  
"Tell us what?" Cid asked in a gruff manner, trying his hardest not to let any curiosity show in his voice.

"…well…Rinoa was…I mean…I was…with Rinoa" Leon stuttered, not knowing what to say.

"You and Rinoa were together?" Aerith asked innocently.

"What?!" many voices chorused together.

"You knew?" Leon asked, scandalized.

"Someone _wanted_ to date this cold bastard?" Irvine asked at the same time, earning him a scathing look from Leon.

"Of course I knew, Leon," Aerith said in a matter-of-fact voice. "Oh, were you trying to keep it a secret?"

At Leon's curt nod, Aerith added conspiratorially with a large, exaggerated wink, "Well, don't you know? I'm all-knowing."

"You are?!" Sora asked, causing Kairi to sigh.

"I can't believe you didn't tell them!" Rinoa said, sounding quite offended. It was the type of voice that, when directed at someone, caused said someone to seriously rethink their priorities in life if they didn't want to suffer very much in the near future. And despite apparently having the emotional range of a dented teaspoon, Leon did at least have some sense of self-preservation.

"There was never really a right time," he said, but if he hoped to placate the girl, he miscalculated.

"A right time?!" Rinoa demanded. "When was it _not_ a right time?!"

"You tell him," Irvine said cheerfully. "By the way, I'm-"

He was cut off when Tifa smacked him in the head. "Stop flirting with her! Can't you see she's already with someone?"

Irvine shrugged, "And considering how Scar-Face doesn't have a romantic bone in his body, who knows how long that will last?"

"At least he's not so perverted that he'll hit on someone else's girlfriend!"

"And someone who's dead!" Kuja added.

"You're hung up on this dead thing, aren't you?" Demyx asked curiously. "You know, it's not that bad. Well, besides the entire… being dead thing and stuck with crazy people who won't stop burning down flowers or making perverted comments or trying to burn my sitar or being all sadistic or burning up trees or shooting random people or burning-"

"Yeah kid, we get the picture," Cid grunted. "By the way, has anybody else noticed the vampire in that tree over there?"

Demyx shrieked, causing everyone to stare at him as he screamed, "I knew it was a vampire! I knew it! Oh god, don't eat me! Particularly when there are other tasty people here! Just don't eat me! I don't want to die again! And I'm sorry! I'm sorry for everything I've done! I won't do it again! Xemnas made me do it! And I only did it because I wanted a heart and I didn't want to get hurt and I sorta enjoyed it maybe but it was all for a good cause in the end even though we hurt a lot of innocent people in the process but I just did it because I wanted a heart too and it's hard being incomplete when all you can remember is when you were complete and then all you want is to be complete again even if it means that you're going to hurt a lot of people but I'm sure that if they knew the whole story they would understand and there would be no hard feelings!"

"Demyx, chill," Zack said, glad for the distraction as he tried to give the Nobody a reassuring grin. The grin quickly fell when Aerith gave him a _look_, and he quickly turned his full attention back to her. "Anyway, as I've told him a million times before, that's Vincent. He's actually a nice guy… well, when he's not aiming to kill anyway. At least, I don't think he's actually aiming to hit me because if he is, then that means he has some really shitty aiming and that just really sucks for him since he's _supposed_ to be some renowned marksman. But hey, guess that would explain why he's dead, right?"

And in response to his less than tactful comment, Zack was once again filled with lead. Irvine and Sora were fascinated at how the holes just closed back up after the bullets were pushed out of Zack's body by some unknown mystical force.

"Hey! That's so cool! Do you think that'll happen to me if I get shot?" Sora asked.

"Let's not try," Tifa said while pulling Sora away from the vampire in a tree (aka Vincent). "And let's not provoke man in red with red eyes. You can't trust guys with guns," Tifa added, shooting a look at Irvine.

"I couldn't agree more," a voice drawled right before a beam hit Tifa in the shoulder.

"Tifa!" Sora cried out but soon found himself encased in a two-dimensional card. "Hey! Let me out!"

"I think not keyblade master." Luxord trotted up to the card containing Sora while flinging cards out to catch Tifa and Aerith within them. "It would be incredibly annoying if you got in the way of our carefully planned out plans."

"Luxord," Xaldin said while sending his spears to take down Leon, "You idiot. Can't you think of something better to say? And Xigbar, stop laughing. You sound like a donkey." Xaldin's last comment was directed at the shooter who was laughing loudly at his opponents who he had levitated into the air and was currently spinning around in summersaults.

Unfortunately, this battle was decided very quickly when the only person from Sora's group who was not turned into a card was Vincent, whose bullets proved useless against people who were already dead. And Luxord found it was too troublesome to go up in the tree and fetch Vincent down so he could be put in a card. Furthermore, it seemed that Vincent wasn't going to budge from his perch, Luxord just gave up and let Vincent keep plugging him full of bullets.

"Let us out!" Donald yelled, banging on the inside of the card, hoping that maybe he'd get lucky and the card would break, or that maybe on the small off chance, the bad guys might listen to them and let them go.

"Well it was fun!" Luxord said merrily while tucking something into his pocket. "It was nice to see you again Demyx. If you're interested, Xemnas made this awesome plan with this freaky alien woman who looks all 'wooooo' and 'haaaaa' and goes all 'yuuuuuu'." Luxord accompanied his odd sound effects by rapidly waving his in every direction.

"No dude," Xigbar said, "She more like 'whoooosh' and 'miiiiiiii'." Xigbar also had his own crazy arm movements to accompany his noises.

"Idiots," Xaldin mumbled before saying in a louder voice, "Let's go." He spun on his heel and headed in a seemingly random direction.

"Hey wait for us!" Xigbar yelled as he and Luxord ran off behind them.

As soon as they disappeared, the spears vanished, and those lucky few trapped in cards were unceremoniously dropped on the ground.

"That was an experience I could have done without," Irvine muttered, rubbing his head.

But nobody was listening to him because Demyx was blubbering happily, "He noticed me! Luxord noticed me! And he said it was nice to see me again! Luxord was never nice to me before—that was a really nice thing of him to say! I didn't even think he knew my name even though I was technically his superior, since I did join before he did. But he was always a better fighter than me so I guess he didn't really feel like he needed to be nice to me."

Kuja rolled his eyes, "My god, does he never shut up?"

"My guess is 'no', seeing how he hasn't shut up once the entire goddamn time we've been in this hellhole," Cid snapped.

"That isn't very nice," Kairi admonished, but Cid didn't seem very repentant.

"I have to tell Axel about this! He was another person who was never really nice to me… well, him and Marluxia and Larxene and the Superior and Saix and Zexion and Vexen and Lexaeus and Xigbar and Xaldin… hey, even Roxas wasn't very nice to me! But Roxas was only nice to Axel anyway, when you weren't trying to strangle him for groping you anyway. Hey Axel, you remember that time when… Axel?" Demyx's voice trailed off as he blinked, looking around for that shock of red hair that had for a time plagued his existence, as Axel had found it very amusing to haze the newest member of the Organization when he had just become a Nobody. Needless to say, the experience had been very traumatizing, but that was beside the point. "Hey, Axel isn't here anymore!"

It took several more tries for Demyx to get everyone's attention to articulate this rather important fact, as most everyone was used to simply tuning him out.

"Axel's gone?!" Sora asked, sounding slightly traumatized yet relieved by the fact that he was no longer being groped.

"Good riddance!" he then said in the next breath.

"Err… is this another example of his multiple personality thing?" Irvine drawled, but nobody responded as they were too busy watching the show.

"We have to help him!" Sora said, sounding rather like he was arguing with someone. Unfortunately, since Roxas the one he was arguing with, he was simply arguing with himself.

"Why?" Roxas demanded. "He's a waste of space. Nobody will miss him."

"You'll miss him, won't you?"

"No," Roxas replied flatly.

"How could you say such a thing?! He loves you!"

"He doesn't have a heart. He doesn't love anyone."

"But he died for you!" Sora wailed.

"And it would suit him well to stay dead."

"That's the most horrible thing I have ever heard!"

"Then consider yourself lucky than you've never had to hear Axel sing. He sounds like a gutted cat. When sober, anyway. He actually sounds pretty good when he's drunk."

"You know, this is really weird, watching Sora debate with himself. I'd say he's the epitome of indecisiveness huh?"

"Irvine," Kairi said with an exasperated tone in her voice.

"Hey, I'm just saying…"

"Boys," Tifa started to scold Sora but stopped with a perplexed look on her face. "Er…boy...uh. Sora and Roxas, there's no need to argue. Why don't we just go save Axel and everything will be okay."

"Hell no," Cid said angrily. "If you haven't forgotten Tifa, he was one of the bad guys when he was alive."

"Hey, you never know. I bet death is a big personality changer," Irvine commented.

"I know Axel. And from his display earlier, he didn't change," Sora snapped, giving Irvine a look of disdain that creeped Irvine out since he had never seen Sora look like that.

"But Roxas! He was your best friend in the Organization. He went to save you from DiZ. Maybe you should return the favor?"

"How did you know that?" Sora gave Kairi a suspicious look.

"Naminé told me. She said Axel was quite determined in Twilight Town."

"Just 'cause he was horny doesn't mean I have to save him."

"Roxas!" Kairi (or maybe Naminé) looked scandalized.

"Look," Zack said diplomatically, "Why don't we settle this the simple way. I mean Axel's been cool with me since I've met him in the Underworld, other than how he's been constantly trying to burn down the flowers, but yeah. Let's take a vote. Or play rock-paper-scissors. That's how I solved things when I was still alive."

"Okay! I say yes!" Sora exclaimed.

Zack beamed at Sora for agreeing to his suggestion and also threw in his 'yes' vote.

"No way!" Donald squawked, stomping his foot for emphasis.

"I'm with the duck," Cid grumbled.

Tifa exchanged looks with Aerith and then voted 'yes' for the both of them.

"Hey I'm all for doing the heroic," Irvine drawled. However, the next thing he knew Leon was very close and his gunblade was even closer.

"Since we still have to find out why King Mickey sent us here, I think it would be better if we didn't go on a wild goose chase. Don't you agree Irvine?" Leon gave Irvine a pointed look and hefted his gunblade closer to Irvine's soft belly.

"Er…right. That's a really sharp sword you've got there Leon."

"Isn't it?"

"…very lovely. In fact, it'd be lovelier if it was over there."

Kuja seemed delighted with Leon's actions. "I think that means it's a no from me, the scarred boy, and the cowboy."

"Who the hell are you?" Cid demanded.

"You've only been conversing with me for the last twenty minutes and you didn't notice I was here?"

"I'm sure I'd notice someone as girly as you. I mean, what is with those feathers? And the skirt?"

In response, Kuja flung his hand out with a motion that made Cid think he was going to slap him (and thus solidify Kuja's girliness), but as Cid stepped back to avoid the hand, he realized that Kuja didn't want to slap him. Just catch his face with those insanely long and sharp nails.

"Holy shit!"

"I say no too!" Sora exclaimed, reminding everyone about the vote.

"You already voted Sora!" Tifa reminded him gently.

"Well I say no now! Changing his…I mean, my vote!"

"Roxas," Kairi said, "I don't think you get a say in this."

"Why not?" he demanded. "I have an opinion too."

"But you and Sora are the same person."

"And he makes dumb decisions. Which is why my vote should be counted."

"I don't think it works like that," Kairi said. "But let's not argue about that, since Axel _is_ in trouble. We need to go help him."

"Guess that's a yes," Demyx piped up. "And even though Axel always tried to burn my sitar, I guess he's an okay guy. So I'm voting yes, although I'm reserving the right to change my mind if he tries to do that again."

"So that makes it… seven to six in favor of helping Axel, even when we're including Roxas," Zack said with a beaming smile. "Guess that means we're going to go save the guy!"

"I wouldn't suggest that," a deep voice interjected, causing everyone to turn as one towards the tree. Demyx screamed as someone jumped from the tree, red cape fluttering as Vincent landed gracefully before walking towards them. "Seeing how you would just be walking into a trap."

"No shit," Cid grunted, but this was covered up by the fact that Zack was running towards Vincent, arms outstretched.

"Vincent!" he yelled, reaching out to glomp the gunner. "You've come out of your—_ow_!! Stop shooting me over there! Stop it—ouch! Shit!"

After a few moments of bullets dropping out and flesh regenerating, Vincent glared at the pitiful mass sobbing on the ground before saying through gritted teeth, "As I was saying…."

"And who the fuck are you?" Cid asked, always a model of eloquence. "And why should we listen to you?"

The temperature seemed to drop thirty degrees as Vincent turned to him and said simply, "Because I am going to stop you from making the biggest mistake of your collective existences."

* * *

A.N. Wheee! We updated! Expect the next one sometime between then and now.


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